Experimental measurement of the total energy losses in a low pressure inductively coupled argon plasma

Total energy losses per electron-ion pair lost (epsilon(T)) were measured experimentally in a low pressure inductively coupled argon plasma. A floating probe working at very low bias voltage (similar to 1 V) was used to obtain the electron temperatures and plasma densities at the plasma-sheath boundary. epsilon(T) was found from a power balance equation between the absorbed power and dissipated power by electrons and ions. At 10 mTorr, the measurement shows that the measured epsilon(T)(similar to 100 V) gradually decreased with absorbed power, and this indicates that the ionization efficiency enhances by multistep ionizations. These epsilon(T) are consistent with the theoretical results. (C) 2009 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3097020